5 Steps to a Successful Diversity Recruitment Program

Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have reported a major increase in the number of corporations recruiting their students and graduates in the wake of a global outcry for racial justice and equity that arose in 2020. According to Seana Coulter, director of the center for career development at HBCU Morgan State University, “In my 24-year career in higher education, all in career services, I cannot recall a time when recruitment efforts at HBCUs have been this high and have stayed this high.” 

The heightened interest in HBCUs is one sign of how businesses are ramping up their diversity and inclusion efforts, which span a wide range of population segments, including people of color, women, LGTBQ+ people, and much more. The results show that more diverse businesses outperform less diverse companies. And companies are being held accountable for how diverse they are. 

A company cannot become more diverse without knowing how to recruit for diversity. At the same time, companies need to set themselves up for success with diversity recruitment. If they do not, they will face disappointment in the long run. Here are some questions every business should ask before they launch a diversity recruitment program: 

1. Why Are You Launching a Diversity Recruitment Campaign? 

Before you do anything, take a hard look at your motivations. Are you undertaking a diversity recruitment program to check a box? Or do you wish to improve your company’s commitment to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and overall performance and at the same time? A renewed awareness of aligning people, purpose, and profit has made many businesses more attuned to the value of building a more diverse workforce. But diversity recruitment should not be a fashionable trend in response to news headlines and pithy thought leadership pieces. Diversity recruitment needs to be rooted in a desire to be a better citizen of the world, resulting in the organization becoming a better performer. The two motivations are intertwined. It has been well established that diverse and inclusive teams are engines of innovation and that diverse companies are more profitable. They are also more relevant to the needs of a more diverse workforce. 

What is your “why” behind diversity recruitment? 

2. What Are Your Goals? 

Identifying goals is essential, but companies also need to consider some important nuances that influence the types of goals they set. For instance, a diversity recruitment program may span a wide range of audiences, covering attributes such as: 

• Age  
• Ability  
• Gender  
• Sexual identity  
• Race or ethnicity  
• Religion and spiritual views 

How do your diversity goals apply to all these audiences, and how do those goals ladder up to your corporate performance goals? Setting measurable hiring goals is important. But they need to tie to corporate metrics such as increased profitability, market leadership, and improved shareholder value – all rooted in your overarching “why” for launching a diversity recruitment campaign as noted in the previous section.   

One of the other pitfalls of goals is focusing on percentages of hires at the expense of inclusion goals. It is totally fine and advisable to set measurable hiring goals for diversity – after all, you need a pipeline of diverse hires to create a more diverse workplace. But hiring a more diverse workforce is just the start. How are you measuring your ability to make your company an inclusive place where a diverse workforce can succeed happily? (And we will address inclusion more in the next section.) These kinds of goals can be established and measured in both quantitative and qualitative ways: 

• Quantitative: includes metrics such as how well different groups achieve management ranks, how diverse your C-level team is, and how well your company is closing the gender pay gap. For example, in 2020, Accenture said it would more than double the number of racially and ethnically diverse managing directors in its company.  
• Qualitative: these typically focus on employee satisfaction, and they are established by surveying employees.  Surveys may include open-ended questions such as, “I believe that my company is a safe and inclusive place to work for me.” A company needs to set a baseline for how its employees of all groups perceive whether the organization fosters a culture of inclusion. If employees do not feel safe and valued, they will leave no matter what level of management they achieve. 

The above goals measure the overall employee experience beyond the initial success of recruitment. That is the way it should be: recruitment is a means to an end. Also, a company should have a deadline for meeting those goals. For more insight into goal setting, this blog post from Lever, a human resources software firm, is helpful.  

3. How Inclusive Is Your Company? 

Recruits will see right through a business that lacks a culture of inclusivity. They will know the moment they do the job interview. And they will never apply to work for your company again. As we discuss in this blog post, while the two terms are often conflated and used interchangeably, diversity and inclusion are quite distinct initiatives. Hiring a diverse workforce does not automatically result in a cohesive and accepting workplace. Moreover, if employees do not feel included, then you run the risk of them leaving. This is where inclusion initiatives come in.   

How do you know whether your company is inclusive? Setting measurable goals (see above) is one way. You can also do many tangible things to foster inclusion, which can make your organization more welcoming to recruits and new hires. They include: 

• Giving people a voice. It is important that people of all backgrounds know that your workplace is a safe space for them to be seen and heard. For example, at Google, an employee resource group known affectionately as Gayglers advocate for LGBTQ+ employees, provide mentorship, and a home base. There are so many more ways to give employees a voice. They include inviting people of different backgrounds to blog about themselves and their experiences (here is an example) or speaking at company events. 
• Educating your employees. Diversity training is an ongoing and comprehensive process designed to reduce discrimination and to make the workplace more accepting of others. Training goes well beyond recruitment – it must cover all aspects of a company’s operations and address topics such as unconscious bias that permeates the business. This kind of training goes beyond the adoption of mandatory online courses (although those are important). Education also includes, for example, employees sharing their experiences with each other, and businesses hosting events to raise awareness of public issues that affect their employees. For instance, Coca-Cola’s diversity education programs include training, a Diversity Speaker Series, a Diversity Library, and more.  
• Making your benefits inclusive. These include benefits for LGBTQ+ employees. A 2020 McKinsey study says that only half of Fortune 500 companies provide benefits for domestic partners and fewer than two-thirds offer trans-inclusive healthcare coverage. One of the exceptions, IBM, began to offer domestic partner benefits for its gay and lesbian employees in the United States in 1996. (Read about IBM’s journey toward supporting transgender employees here.) 

These are just three among many points. There are many resources to read in order to learn how to make your company more inclusive, and organizations such as the Society for Human Resource Management can be valuable partners. 

4. Is Your Entire Recruitment Process Inclusive? 

This may seem more tactical, but it is no less important. Before you launch a diversity recruitment campaign, consider how your entire recruitment process will look to a recruit after they see your job description or respond to an ad and apply to work for your company. How inclusive is it? Does the recruitment process reflect the diversity of your company? 

Being inclusive might mean re-examining your hiring requirements. For instance, hiring for skills, not education, broadens your pool of candidates to include people who may be highly qualified but lack access to educational opportunities that more privileged people enjoy. Accenture recently removed bachelor’s degree requirements from half of its roles in the United States, which gives the company access a broader talent pool with increased representation. 

Other considerations include, but are not limited to: 

• How diverse your recruitment team is. They are on the front lines representing your company. What first impression will they make? In addition, you need a diverse team to guard against affinity bias creeping into your decision making. 
• Your job descriptions. Make sure you guard against biased language popping up. Again, having a diverse team involved in the creation and approval of content will help guard against problems occurring. 
• How the entire recruitment process works from awareness to decision making. For example, how transparent are you with your answers to the questions you will receive about your company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion? Will the experience recruits receive on your website and socials be inclusive? Is your website accessible?  

A strong recruitment process recognizes that job applications form opinions of companies everywhere – on their websites, by talking with employees and ex-employees, reading Glassdoor, scanning the news for positive and negative stories about the organization, and so on. Good companies understand the importance of transparency across the board.  

5. Are You Holding Yourself Accountable Publicly? 

Holding yourself accountable means reporting to your employees and to the public your progress in meeting your diversity/inclusion goals (see Question 1). Holding yourself accountable means openly discussing the steps you are taking to address gaps in your progress. 

Many businesses do so by publishing diversity/inclusion sections on their websites, where it is easier for their audiences to take a snapshot of their journey. For example, Procter & Gamble’s site provides a comprehensive overview of the company’s commitment to diversity/inclusion.  

Build a foundation on your own website is important. No matter where job seekers find you, at some point in the process of learning about you and applying for a job, they are going to come to your website. 77 percent of job seekers go to a company’s website when they look for a job, which makes the website the most important source of information. 

My recently published blog post “How Strong Is Your Diversity and Inclusion Strategy?” contains more examples of how a business can hold itself accountable. They include: 

• Publishing inclusivity reports. 
• Showing how diversity/inclusion permeates the workforce. 
• Discussing the gender pay gap. 

The website is the foundation. But a business needs to amplify its story with a strong social media program, public relations, paid media, and other forms of outreach. And, most of all, be transparent with your employees. Hold yourself accountable to your people. 

A Resource for Brands 

IDX can help you maximize performance through recruitment and retention strategies through our HR & Talent Acquisition offering. Contact IDX to learn how. 

In addition, our new report, The ESG Agenda, discusses several ways businesses can build trust with their audiences via stronger environmental, social, and governance (ESG) communications, including diversity/inclusion. We also rank – for the first time – the Top 10 businesses around the world that articulate their commitment to ESG via digital.  

Read this report to understand what a successful ESG story looks like -- and how to get started telling yours more effectively.